Senior bureaucrat Arunish Chawla has been appointed as the new Revenue Secretary, while Vineet Joshi, the Chief Secretary of Manipur, has been named the Secretary of the Higher Education Department in a major bureaucratic reshuffle announced by the Centre on Wednesday.

Chawla, a 1992-batch IAS officer from the Bihar cadre, was previously serving as the Pharmaceuticals Secretary. He now takes over the Department of Revenue in the Ministry of Finance, following the appointment of Sanjay Malhotra as the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Chawla will also retain the additional charge of the Ministry of Culture until a permanent head is appointed.

Vineet Joshi, another 1992-batch IAS officer, has been promoted from his role as Chief Secretary of Manipur to head the Higher Education Department. Joshi had previously served as Additional Secretary in the Department of Higher Education.

In other key changes, Amit Agrawal has been appointed the new Pharmaceuticals Secretary, replacing Chawla, while Rachna Shah will be the new Secretary of the Department of Personnel and Training. Senior IAS officer Sanjay Sethi has been named the new Secretary of the National Commission for Minorities, and Neerja Sekhar will lead the National Productivity Council.